Making Softie Patterns - The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
For me, this past week has been all about writing up instructions and drawing templates for two magazines - definitely the least fun part of making softies!
The exciting part of course is when crafty folk decide that they want to give the softie a go and then let me know about their creation or send me a photo. Two recent examples are the gorgeous Cheery Chimp that Fiona made (photo by Fiona):
And the charming Owl Pillow that Marita made (photo by Marita):
I’ve mentioned the Ruby Dolls Flickr pool before and I do love popping in there to see how others are adding their own personal style to the simple pattern.
If you happen to have made any Baby Ana Chibi Dolls or Patchwork Seahorses, please let me know and send through a link or pic as I would love to see your creation and post a few of them up here!
The ugly part of making patterns available emerges when you find that someone has taken your pattern and has either copied it outright or has made very minor changes to the pattern, claimed it as their original design, and is selling it for profit. Some of you may have seen the heated exchanges that were going on over at Moopy & Me (relevant posts have now been removed) over the striking similarities between toys being sold by an Aussie company and Hillary Lang’s designs. Unfortunately, this type of issue is not new for Hillary as I do recall a different store (also in Australia) that was making and selling her bear/cat/bunny softies as their own design last year - and at the Magnolia Square market of all places!
The very talented Emily Martin of The Black Apple fame also recently received flack (which in my view was completely undeserved, pitiful, and immature) for requesting that the doll pattern she designed and graciously provided for free not be made into dolls sold for profit.
I do want to acknowledge, as wise old King Solomon once said, that “there is nothing new under the sun.” Rag dolls and animal softies dressed up in outfits are certainly not new. All designs have been inspired and influenced by current and past styles/designs in some way. There is, however, a very clear line between being inspired/influenced and simply copying or making very minor changes (e.g. change the eye shape, change the hairstyle, add some shoes but the basic look and shape of the doll remains the same) and claiming it as your own.
Thankfully, the majority of crafters sincerely respect the work of others and I have discovered that we certainly tend to “look out” for each other and watch each others’ backs :-) This certainly makes the world wide web a much smaller place, allowing such examples of infringement and blatant disrespect to travel quickly through the community - and I must say, though the craft community is very much a sharing and caring place, the backlash against copycats is pretty fierce!! :-)
So I do thank Karyn for letting me know about this doll that is currently being designed/made by a group of mums interstate and sold on an online web-store that caters for babies:
EDITED: The picture of the doll has been removed to clarify that no accusations of infringement are being made against the makers of the doll. It was included here originally to kick-off discussion about similarity/minor variations vs outright copying. The discussion in the comments has been insightful and helpful and I think it can continue without further reference to the doll originally posted here. Thanks!
Hi, I think the doll could have been inspired by your work, but I wouldn’t call it a copycat. I’ve seen many other art dolls with all the same elements this “other” doll has. The face is not exactly like yours. Nor is the body shape, hair, or legs. I would let it go. But that’s just my two cents.
I think it looks nothing like your baby chibi dolls. If anything it is more similar to kokeshi / matryoshka dolls. The body shape is different, there are no arms or legs. The facial features are different. I think that anyone can use certain dolls as an ‘inspiration’ but whether they have actually ‘copied’ the design is a completely different story. I can’t actually see anything that is exactly the same, sorry.
I am saddened by the amount of people who copy cat/ rip others off.. However after looking at this for a while let me point out a few things. The overall shape isn’t in anyway similar, the hands and holding something are, perhaps the angle on which the hands are placed are a little more similar than you would like but I think if i had just doodled out a shape and were adding simple hands this might be how I did them. the cheeks, same thing again, hers connect to the mouth where as yours don’t, the hair is very similar, but again its a simple idea to cut vs into paper/felt to get the image. If you are concerened you are being ripped off why not send the maker a polite email and bring up your concerns and that it had been brought to your attention. This isn’t a direct ripoff the shape of your original designs is VERY shapely and this has none of that. :) Hope my 2c help and I dont think you are over reacting. Too many people rip others off and it is really not on! Best wishes!
I do not think this doll is a copy cat at all and I think that many dolls can have a tendancy to look similar to each other - just like people from similar races so I think it would be hard to claim copy cat on a product unless there has been direct copying - I gvuess there is a fine line between copying and inspiring….
My friends daughter was a copy cat of your baby chibi doll today, I came here to send my firend your web link as her daughter looked like a baby chibi LOL.
Keep up your good work
I think there are striking similarities here…the hair, the hands, the heart…but, that being said, I don’t come across many dolls (I have boys!) so perhaps these designs are alike due to the ‘in’ way of designing doll? It may not be a direct knock-off but there’s definitely some twin-ness about them…but yours is so much better as it has so much more details and life :)
It’s hard to tell, Jhoanna. Definitely more like a russian doll than anything. I just got one from an etsy seller in Denmark and althought the felt hands at the front are align in the same way as your baby chibis, they also have them in the painted russian nesting dolls.
Thanks for your thoughts so far everyone! Lots of good points and perspectives - keep ‘em coming!
I think the hair style and the face are a bit too similar–your work was definitely the inspiration. However, I think they made enough changes–different body type, eyes and mouth to be a direct copy. Jhoanna, if it helps, it is a backhanded compliment. No one would ever copy one of my designs. :-D This copy-cat issue really burns me up though and I’m disgusted when people steal other’s designs!
I think that the doll is more likely to be inspired by the same things as your lovely Chibis.I think they look more like Russian dolls than anything else.They seem rounder than yours too.
I don’t think this doll is directly copied off your baby chibis. I think it definitely could be inspired or influenced, but like many others before me have said, it also looks like it could be equally inspired by the russian stacking dolls (I’ll stick with that name as I think I’ll butcher it if I try to spell their russian name).
To me, that doll also looks inspired by the craze of Dotee dolls I’ve just become aware about. Definitely the style that they’ve done the facial features in, anyway. Check them up online - a google search should return a huge amount of results for you to check out if you haven’t already seen ‘em. I must live under a rock or something :p
While there are differences, as many have pointed out, why is the hair almost the same? The hands and heart? For me, clearly in the minority, it’s awfully similiar.
Hi Jhoanna and other bloggy peeps. Copyright is a very difficult issue. According to international copyright rules, you only need to change something 10% for it not to be a blatant copy. My mum owned a patchwork store for some 20 odd years and made many patterns for classes only to have people sell the patterns (yeap) or go down to the local church and teach the class to other members of the congregation. Mum got very upset over this and saw her her lawyer about it. The problem is that you only need 10% difference (which is nothing) if you DO NOT have a PATENT on the pattern. I checked this over with the resident lawyer and he confirmed it (because I always wondered about the whole Disney suing the pants off people doing the wrong thing with Disney designs). Only thing is patents are ouch kind of expensive. I agree that it is the lowest form of cheating that someone changes that little bit after all your hard work but unfortunately it is the law. Stupid and unfair especially seeing that there are peeps out there who take advantage in that loop hole and the ACCC rules don’t help either. May be we need to start petitioning politicians (our law makers) that their rules are extremely unfair on little people. And it is not only crafters that these rules are hurting.
This is such a difficult issue.
I was trying to make some dolls for our school’s craft fair last year and spent some time coming up with my own design and patterns… which, needless to say, was influenced by many different things. Some shapes just don’t work very well, some need too many pieces to make them practical or desirable to mass produce if you’ve got limited time and know they will be sold cheaply. How many different ways can you do arms? legs? Some things are a very practical way to incorporate features (like felt hair). In the Hilary case they were very obviously direct copies - no detail was skipped.
I think with anything that’s similar but not the same you have to let it go. You may both have been inspired by the same other designer. That doll looks more like it was inspired by the wishes and heroes dolls. I did sewn on hands like that, and sewn on faces that I painted, with felt hair when I made a bunch of matryoshka style wheat bags… I’m 100% sure I saw all these details around the place on other people’s dolls… I don’t want to cripple myself because someone has done it the same or a similar way before. We can’t keep reinventing the wheel.
We can’t expect to read each others blogs and look at flickr and love things people do and then go off to our own little caves and clear all those details from our minds before making something. Let’s not make too big a deal of this issue and scare people into not creating at all in case they get labeled a copycat.
Hmmm… I think this is a case of - take a little bit of this and a little bit of that and a bit of something else and voila! I think a little bit of your Chibi dolls are definately stitched into this softie.
The face has been changed for speed of production - i reckon, rather then aesthetic, as with the legs too - just rounded off for speed - rather than good looks. I guess what I am saying is that someone HAS taken a part of your work - and meshed it with other ideas/influences to create ‘their own work’.
I certainly don’t think it’s a complete rip off. But I think your chibi was definately part of their inspiration. I think it might be nice if they sent you some fan mail to tell you directly how much they like your work.
I think you make beautiful softies, Miss Jhoanna - you are generous with your photos and patterns - and you are rallying people back to their needle and thread, which is a wonderful thing. I think you just have to hold your head high, and maintain your sharing, generous, lovely approach to craft. Imitation IS a form of flattery (but we’d rather have a lovely note in the mail wouldn’t we?!).
I would also like to point out that your support of other crafters, Mikes, Brown Owls and the craft community in general is steadfast. I’m not sure whether people understand how little things like this can build up - and kind of sap your creative spirit. Especially when you are creating for LOVE not MONEY! Don’t let it get you down too much! We need more people like you!
I am sure this is going to happen time and time again - but don’t let it beat you down too much, special girl - it’s a little lesson in life to learn to rise above this sort of thing. Not a lesson I particularly like - but a lesson all the same.
We love you Jhoanna!
xx mikes crew (Cam, Brooke, Rin, Ari, Max, Lucky, Snoopy, Nibbles and Mike)
This is such a confusing area, even in legal terms. I’m not a lawyer, you should find a real legal professional for a more learned discussion, but I did follow the case I think you mentioned on your blog before about Review sueing Lili for copying a dress design.
Review did not have to prove the Lili dress was similar to their own because Lili admitted the dresses were similar. Review already had the design registered so it was pretty easy for the judge to rule in their favour.
Australian law doesn’t specify percentages when it comes to copying. It is up to the judges discretion to decide if something is a copy, which wasn’t necessary in the Review case.
The Designs Act is still very new and yet to be really tested but I think it only works to protect designs that are already registered. And registration can be very expensive. I doubt home-based crafters were taken into consideration when they came up with their fee structure.
I don’t know if any of this has been helpful. I have insomnia so I think writing about boring legal things might help me to sleep.
I love your Baby Chibis!
I see it in a different light. Crafting, to me, has always been about seeing what someone has done and adding your little twist to it. The twist might simply be that you cut it left handed and the shape came out slightly differently or you stuck your ears in a slightly different spot so any given product should spawn a million variations of any one thing. Crafting, to me, has always been about sharing techniques and having fun. I kind of feel it is a new thing for people to want to patent their designs and make extreme amounts of money through licencing and marketing what they’ve got. When the world turns in this way, I, personally, feel that what now becomes important is the way in which that person markets their wares. Essentially, crafters are all pushing the same products, and it becomes about branding your items, of making sure you have a noticeable label on your wares so that “people in the know” will look for this branding on the product and ridiculing people who bought “copies” and not the real thing. I can see that as the only real way to win. I can go to the local craft markets and everyone has a bag to sell, but the memorable bags are the ones with labels on them and you start to respect that label for the quality it provides and you can look out to see how the styles change each season and buy more of the same product. I think that sort of thing is what you want to aim for and try not to worry about people who make knock-offs of your product. You could spend a lot of time knit-picking and spending time in the courts is not going to be fun if it heads that way (do you want to enjoy your life or get bogged down in details?).
For what its worth, the fringe, the “object” and the hands are incredibly similar but the face isn’t as good as yours and the shape isn’t as good as your dolls and I know that your own personal pizazz hasn’t gone into it. Very few people have the fabric coordination that is probably the essence of your dolls. I would prefer to buy your doll because you have built up a name for yourself and I know you do quality work. At best, you could take it as a compliment that someone has tried to take on some of your style. But rest assured that your dolls take the cake and there is no way anyone could do any better!! :)
In a way, some crafters do what they do because they can’t afford the real thing but they still want to provide a doll for their daughter that has those characteristics. I think we are all pretty good at doing knock-offs and that is why we are crafters.. its the nature of the game. As a previous poster said, when I read things like this, I get scared that I might accidentally use other people’s ideas and that I’m “not allowed to” but it kind of goes against the grain at the same time, because that *is* what crafting is to me.. so I find it quite confusing.
I think this doll looks like it’s jumping on the matroyshka trend and it’s quite possible the designer never saw your work. Appliqued face and hands is a vintage technique originally taken from quilting. Heart in hands is an old, old design for showing the concept of love in folky dolls and illustrations. The felt hair that some people seem to think either you or Emily Martin invented has been common in Japanese craft books for a few years and I think I’ve seen it in vintage craft books,too. It bothers me a bit that no matter what design I come up with for a craft, there’s the chance that some craft blogger with a following whom I’ve never even seen before may have done something similar and I will automatically be vilified for “copying” if I try to sell my designs. I guess the problem is breadth of knowledge– I’m over 40, I’ve seen a lot of design in my life and studied folk and ethnic design from all over the world– and that informs my personal aesthetic. Since folky and vintage inspired designs are what’s popular now, I’m pretty happy seeing all the cute stuff but I’m a little disturbed at the way some, presumably less design-history savvy people, want to stake out what to me are very broad design parameters as personal to this or that recent popular artisan. It’s certainly a clear copy in some cases (e.g. the Hillary Lang robot/spacemen) but much less clear in others (I never could quite figure out what dolls on Etsy people were claiming copied Emily Martin’s — but maybe they had been removed by the time I looked?) I love your work and your unique, unmistakable aesthetic. But I think realistically, there are only so many ways to render _cute_ fabric creatures, and similarities will occur even without intention. And I also wonder what’s wrong with similarity? Emily Martin’s work looks a bit like Mark Rydan’s and a bit like Christina Gordon’s. her dolls’ bodies look a lot like long-legged rag dolls common in the 70s. I get the impression that like many of us, she digs design from the 20s, from the 70s and big eyed-girls. I like her work, I find it original and charming but I see how it’s like other work I like, too. I don’t get the partisanship of attacking less popular people whose work may also be similar to any of those things as “copying” Emily Martin.
Hi All, thanks so much for continuing in this discussion! It’s really good to hear what you think about this issue and to get the many different perspectives.
A main theme that seems to be popping up a lot are “similarity” and “putting your own twist on things”. I recently replied to a comment and thought I would paste that response here too:
It is true, at the end of the day there are only so many ways to make a doll and many of the techniques used to make softies today are simply revived from the generation before.
There is nothing wrong with similarity. I suppose the perspective I am coming from is where a designer has worked hard on getting a pattern together for a doll that they have designed and has made the pattern available to others, with a request that the purchaser of the pattern respect copyright and not make the doll or a minor variation of the doll to sell. In Hillary’s case, it is obvious that her pattern booklets were used to make the copy-cat the items - there were hardly any changes made to Hillary’s pattern.
However, is it okay to take a pattern made by someone else and make very minor changes to it and then claim that it is your own original design and sell it for profit? Is that really being creative and putting your own spin on things, or is it being lazy and going for the quick buck? It kind of makes a mockery of all the hard work the original designer put into the pattern in the first place. I don’t think this is an issue when you make variations to someone else’s pattern for your own personal use, but when you do so and then claim that it is your original design and sell it - surely there is something just not right about that??
It is a very tricky subject and all of the comments have made a number of great points. It is difficult because on the one hand we don’t want designers who are willing to share their patterns to become disillusioned and stop sharing their patterns altogether, and on the other hand we also want to foster creativity and experimentation, and not create an environment where crafters are hesitant to make things for fear of being called a copycat. Additionally, there is no benefit to anyone when a less ‘popular’ crafter is accused of copying a more ‘popular’ crafter simply because the latter is more well-known.
Hi Jhoanna!!! As a fellow crafter and pattern writer I know the fear or upset of being copied. I think however that worrying about it is a crazy way to waste our time! We will be copied, we have copied. We like to think we do not copy but our designs come out of us from images and things we have seen over our lives - subconciously we are probably copying all the time. As someone else said, I dont like to think of it as copying but as someones adaptation or interpretation. Saying this, there is of course blatant copying and I think that this is just someone happy to be second best and it isnt worth wasting your time thinking about it. As a wise lady once said “your best revenge is your next killer design” and we all know that worry or upset zaps our creativity - so dont let it!! Do what you love and love what you do. Be thankful and exicited that your work has inspired others to create beautiful items also! I also live in fear that someone will see me as being a copycat. Today we get to see all these images of beautiful work online and I always worry that subconciously I am creating something that I saw one day online - It is a scary thought to accidentaly copy as well as being copied. We just need to let it go and let our creativity flow! Melly.
Also, forgot to say that I dont see the doll as a copy of yours. As other people have said, it may be that they looked at your blog one day and elements of your dolls inspired them eiher conciously or subconciously. I think they are very different to yours in personality, feel and vibe (if that makes sense?? - it doesnt have your personal style about it).
Im afraid this is what really worries me about all the internet talk of copying. This doll does not seem at all to be like your one to me, it seems much more like the matryoshka dolls that are very popular at the moment. The incident with Hillary seems very clear though and if that happens we need to be able to talk about it. So the dilemma for me is the fear this is creating for people who make things about being condemned unfairly as a copier. What if this was my work being discussed here and I came across it? I would be crushed. I cant deny when I make things now I worry and I dont think I should have to. I make all my dolls and toys from scratch, from my own patterns and of course they are influenced by other things, but they are mine. It does happen too that people make a similar item without ever having seen each others work, how do you prove that though or defend yourself? I see alot of work too that is heavily influenced by Japanese craft as mine is, but in other countries that is less well known and becomes a trademark of one particular craft person and therefore untouchable. Its a murky area and in some ways is really infringing on all of us being able to make things freely.
Hi all,
I’m not a crafter (just a lover of all the lovely things you all make… thanks!), so perhaps you have investigated this before or as a community you know about it already, but have you seen in CC Licensing works for you?
Creative Commons licenses are FREE, easy and designed so that you can stipulate whether someone can use your creative work and either:
- adapt it
- be required to inform you of its use in any form
- use it for profit, or not to create profit, whichever you desire
My partner and I use it for protection on the magazine we publish and it’s also commonly used for music (so people can share their creations for sampling or collaboration without worrying it will be ripped off for commercial use), blogs and so forth.
I strongly suggest you visit their website. They have a strong Australian team, are based out of QUT (if I’m not mistaken) in Brisbane and are passionate about people being able to share the fruits of their brains without worrying about the kinds of issues you discuss. If you have questions, they love to help.
I have no ties to them at all, other than my friend Elliott Bledsoe being one of their team… I’m just really impressed with its variety of applications for creative people.
Hope it helps!
I emailed Elliott out of curiosity, and here is what he said:
it most certainly does work for patterns. patterns in their own right are artistic works under the act. and of course if the creator of the pattern has made one or more of the soft toys from the pattern the toy becomes a work of artistic craftsmanship under the act as well. so two copyrighted works. if they have given someone else permission to create a soft toy from the pattern that person has a separate copyright in their toy, but on in so far as they are using the pattern within the terms of the licence. so if they were only permitted to make 5 and they made 500 they would be in breach of their licence. if someone else makes the toy from the patterns it is a 3D reproduction of a 2D work which is still a breach.
depending on what they want to do/why their pattern is up online/being distributed. if they don’t want people making the toys for money but are ok with people making their own personal versions from the pattern than a any of the non-commercial licences would be appropriate
if they want to also restrict modifications to the toy pattern then they should also consider also using the no derivative works licence.